Things one middle-aged economist finds interesting

Darn right. Amazon has never disappointed me. They underpromise and overdeliver.

Unlike Putin annexing Crimea or the Mafia muscling in on, say, the bar and restaurant business, Amazon didn’t get that big by threatening violence or “scorched earth” (as one critic puts it). It got that way by relentlessly improving and diversifying its product offerings, customer service, and ability to sniff out what you might be interested in buying or accessing (the company’s uncanny success at this has freaked the shit out of its competitors since the company’s earliest days). Like every other legitimate business that must woo customers on a daily basis, it will wither and die the minute it stops giving us what we want at a price we’re willing to pay (does anyone still remember A&P supermarkets, which controlled its market like Walmart on steroids?)

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"Amazon Is NOT the Vladimir Putin of the Publishing World"

Darn right. Amazon has never disappointed me. They underpromise and overdeliver.

Unlike Putin annexing Crimea or the Mafia muscling in on, say, the bar and restaurant business, Amazon didn’t get that big by threatening violence or “scorched earth” (as one critic puts it). It got that way by relentlessly improving and diversifying its product offerings, customer service, and ability to sniff out what you might be interested in buying or accessing (the company’s uncanny success at this has freaked the shit out of its competitors since the company’s earliest days). Like every other legitimate business that must woo customers on a daily basis, it will wither and die the minute it stops giving us what we want at a price we’re willing to pay (does anyone still remember A&P supermarkets, which controlled its market like Walmart on steroids?)